hilarious
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
extremely funny; something that makes you laugh out loud.
extremely amusing or funny; as an extreme adjective, it is typically modified by 'absolutely' rather than 'very'.
Simple“The comedian told a hilarious story about his first day at work.”
In context“The play was absolutely hilarious, with the audience frequently erupting into spontaneous laughter at the lead actor's physical comedy.”
UsageUsually functions as a non-gradable adjective; it is more common in spoken English and informal writing than in academic contexts.
Teacher's tipLearners often over-use 'very' with this word; remind them that 'hilarious' is already at the top of the 'funny' scale.
PitfallThe movie was very hilarious. The movie was absolutely hilarious.Since 'hilarious' already means 'very funny', you should use 'absolutely' or 'really' instead of 'very' to add emphasis.
Synonyms
“The joke became even funnier when it sold for $6.2m, then hilarious when its buyer took a bite out of his purchase and swallowed it .”
“Many of Hanlon’s best jokes are visual, providing hilarious reading for lap-sitters and early readers.”
Learned borrowing from Latin hilaris (“cheerful”) + -ous, from Ancient Greek ἱλαρός (hilarós, “cheerful, merry”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.